In the TV series "Assassination", there is a beautiful decoder Huang Yiyi, who used her genius mind to solve the most difficult password. Is there really such a female decoder in reality? Yes, Wang Xiaoyun, a double-hired professor from Tsinghua University and Shandong University, is such a female expert in the mathematical world. Recently, 4-year-old Wang Xiaoyun won the "China Young Female Scientist Award" for her outstanding contribution in the field of cryptanalysis.

She cracked the password

MD5 encryption algorithm used by the US government. Even with the fastest supercomputer now, it will take more than 1 million years to crack it. But Dr. Wang Xiaoyun, who graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Shandong University, and her research team can find effective results in a few minutes with ordinary personal computers.

SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm, designed by the American national institute of standards and technology and the American national security agency, was recommended to the American government and financial system as early as 1994, and it is the most widely used cryptographic algorithm in the American government at present. In early 25, Wang Xiaoyun and her research team announced that they had successfully cracked SHA-1.

collapse! The Crisis of Cryptography, New Scientist magazine in the United States summed up Wang Xiaoyun's landmark achievements with such a shocking title. Due to the appearance of Wang Xiaoyun, the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced that the US government will not use SHA-1 in five years, and will replace it with a more advanced new algorithm. Well-known companies such as Microsoft, Sun and Atmel have also published their own countermeasures.

"She has the intuition to crack passwords"

Two years ago, Wang Xiaoyun announced at the International Cryptography Conference held in Santa Barbara, California, USA that she and her research team had successfully cracked the four internationally famous cryptographic algorithms MD5, HAVAL-128, MD4 and RIPEMD. When she announced the third achievement, there was already applause at the meeting. For this day, Wang Xiaoyun has been working silently for 1 years. A few months later, she deciphered the more difficult SHA-1.

Wang Xiaoyun is engaged in the research of Hash function. At present, MD5 and SHA-1, the two most widely used cryptographic algorithms in the world, are the two most important Hash functions. At present, the two algorithms are the key technologies in international electronic signature and many other cryptographic applications, which are widely used in e-commerce fields such as finance and securities. SHA-1 is regarded as the unshakable cornerstone of modern network security.

at the beginning of Wang Xiaoyun's research on Hash function, although some cryptographers tried to decipher it, there was no breakthrough. Therefore, the study of Hash function has become the most hopeless field in the minds of many cryptographers in the past 15 years. But Wang Xiaoyun doesn't believe it. She wants to know, is the Hash function as unbreakable as it looks?

Wang Xiaoyun's method of cracking passwords is different. Although the password analysis can't be separated from the computer now, for Wang Xiaoyun, the computer is only an auxiliary means to crack the password by himself. More often, she calculates by hand and designs the cracking way by hand.

Yao Qizhi, winner of Turing Prize, commented on her: "She has an intuition and can pick out the best path from thousands of possibilities."

"I went out for a meal after I cracked the code"

After Wang Xiaoyun led her team to end MD5, The Washington Times reported that the new decoding technology developed by China decoding experts could "attack the White House". Wang Xiaoyun said that in the public's understanding, cryptanalysts are like hackers, but our work is obviously different from hackers. She said: "It is malicious for hackers to crack passwords, hoping to gain benefits by stealing information protected by password algorithms. The job of cryptanalysis scientists is to evaluate the security of a cryptographic algorithm and find a more secure cryptographic algorithm. Unlike covert attacks by hackers, cryptanalysts all over the world work on an open platform. The functional method of cryptographic algorithm design and the theory of cryptographic analysis are all open. "

She said, "On the day when SHA-1 was cracked, I went out for a meal. I am a little excited because I am the first person to know a world-class secret. "

Wang Xiaoyun said that generally speaking, it takes about 1 years to crack an advanced password after it is designed, and it takes about 8 years to design a new password. Cryptography is developed in this constant creation and cracking. From now on, the world cryptology circle has begun to design new passwords, and it is expected that a new generation of secure passwords will be produced by 212.

Wang Xiaoyun said, "99% of scientists in this field will never succeed. Now, it seems that choosing this research field at the beginning was very risky and may never achieve substantive results. But I am interested in this issue. "

Ten years of password cracking is the easiest

After 1 years of cracking the world's top five famous passwords, many people will think that this scientist must have a very monotonous life. Wang Xiaoyun said, "Those 1 years were the ten years when I felt very relaxed." While cracking the password, she gave birth to a daughter and raised a balcony full of flowers. Her only habit related to numbers in life turned out to be remembering taxi numbers.

It turns out that more than half of the members of Wang Xiaoyun's research group are female doctoral students. Work is late and there is no bus, so Wang Xiaoyun always takes them home by taxi. In order to ensure safety, she always remembers the taxi number of the students, and only when the students return home to send her a safe message does she delete the taxi number from her mind.